D&D General The Importance of Page 33

[Neonchameleon]

You may barely be talking about the DM, but there are DMs talking about players; some of the DMs are claiming not to be control freaks, while I'm admitting I kinda am one. My own suspension of disbelief matters to me while I'm DMing--I am tempted to say I can't DM without it. That's part of the reason I'm homebrewing the world--I have a harder time managing suspension of disbelief in the worlds others create.

So, the folk I don't allow, I don't allow because they don't make sense to me, in the world I'm making. I am not intending to accuse any player who wants to play something I'm not allowing of anything worse than possible tone-deafness. There is no "purity of the world" to be violated, there is no judgment of playstyle.

My attitude when DMing is pretty much the literal opposite of this. The real world is not just stranger than I imagine, but stranger than I can imagine. I've limited knowledge and was born in a time, place, and part of the world. Both humans and evolution frequently take ideas and push them past any sort of sane or sensible limits as they get competitive. Add magic to the mix and things get even weirder, especially if "a wizard did it" is a possible answer as to why. As DM I know the major players - but there are too many minor players to grasp.

I might not be willing to add The Great Tabaxi Empire to a D&D inspired setting (or I might put it on the far side of the world) but the idea that a wizard created a family of catpeople a couple of generations back because they could and because they wanted to? Of course and I'd be surprised if several wizards didn't. Because wizards. And because people. It's more setting-breaking for me if no wizard ever tried to do this unless there is some specific magical law that prevents it working.

I have two hard limits - without direct divine intervention societies aren't static, and without direct divine intervention pure dystopias fall apart. I've yet to decide whether Menzobaranzan is essentialy Lolth playing The Sims with a lot of direct intervention or whether it's a potemkin city for Lolth's benefit. Either way it's not natural. (I also in the setting I'm writing have no winged humanoids who can use their wings to fly due to the square cube law). But a simple rule for me of setting building is if it is possible within the bounds of the setting some idiot will have tried it - and as DM I can't anticipate everything even my players will try, never mind all the NPCs.

 

[Neonchameleon]

theoretically believing they existed and seeing one walk down your street are differing matters. But you are wedded to this rather strange insistence that people back then were MORE accepting than people now, somehow.

From my perspective you seem wedded to this strange insistence that all people in all places are xenophobes - which wasn't true then and isn't true now.

I've seen research (but can't currently find it) that there is a minimum population percentage before there's much racism; when something is genuinely outside the norms it just isn't a factor. That Tabaxi is far enough outside the norms for Victorian London that it's clearly its own thing.

Also Victorian London was a major city, a port city, and considered itself the center of the world. There are too many people in a major trading city to pay attention to the ones you don't know and that aren't actively disturbing the peace or trying to get your attention. And in a major world city if there is a group of people that look like that then of course one of them is going to end up in [major world city] at some point. Only the tourists stop and gawp.

This is an entirely different situation from a place like the (fictional) Royston Vasey with a Local Shop for Local People where a new person arriving is big news.

 

[Azuresun]

I've never said they were a bad player. They may not want to be part of my game when I DM but I've never had an issue getting or retaining players. That may sound harsh, but it's just being a realist.

I've had players quit over the years because they've moved, life interfered and so on. I've also had players quit because I just wasn't the right DM for them (they really wanted to play an evil PC which I don't allow).

That's a good point of comparison. Yes, maybe the mooted evil PC for a campaign advertised as heroic will be intelligent and fit in with the group, and won't screw over the party, spotlight hog by going behind their backs to do nasty stuff, or PVP. But--

--A lot of DM's and players will have had bad experiences with that sort of character being played badly, and just don't want to take the risk.
--Even if they're entirely confident this player will do it well, they still don't want to adjust their story for an evil character, or have to deal with the in-character tension and split agendas.
--Another player might dislike the idea--maybe they've had bad experiences with being picked on by past players under the guise of "it's what my character would do", or they've had to derail their characters to explain why they're actually okay with Evil Guy torturing or executing prisoners.

Or heck, cross-gender characters. Many people can do it well, but I'd entirely understand if someone had bad experiences with a creepy guy playing an underage girl trying to seduce other PC's (yep, I've been in groups where that happened) and didn't want to take the risk again. People are allowed to not like stuff without being accused of hating fun or needing a reason that will stand up in court. This is why session zero is necessary, so nobody ends up feeling uncomfortable.

A player only becomes a problem if they make it a problem by being argumentative instead of having a conversation or openly resentful instead of finding a different role to play.

This too! Unless they're being dickish about it (in which case I'd just not join the group), my reaction to "this character doesn't work for me" would be to say okay and come up with something else.

 

[prabe]

My attitude when DMing is pretty much the literal opposite of this. The real world is not just stranger than I imagine, but stranger than I can imagine. I've limited knowledge and was born in a time, place, and part of the world. Both humans and evolution frequently take ideas and push them past any sort of sane or sensible limits as they get competitive. Add magic to the mix and things get even weirder, especially if "a wizard did it" is a possible answer as to why. As DM I know the major players - but there are too many minor players to grasp.

I have two hard limits - without direct divine intervention societies aren't static, and without direct divine intervention pure dystopias fall apart. I've yet to decide whether Menzobaranzan is essentialy Lolth playing The Sims with a lot of direct intervention or whether it's a potemkin city for Lolth's benefit. Either way it's not natural. (I also in the setting I'm writing have no winged humanoids who can use their wings to fly due to the square cube law). But a simple rule for me of setting building is if it is possible within the bounds of the setting some idiot will have tried it - and as DM I can't anticipate everything even my players will try, never mind all the NPCs.

There's no wrong way to do it. My world doesn't need to make DM-level sense to you, yours doesn't need to make DM-level sense to me. Mine needs to make sense to me so I can feel as though I'm building on something solid. As I said, I'm willing to work with players--the way my world works something from another world might be a way to have an otherwise unavailable people be available--but that goes both ways, and they need to be willing to work with me, too.

 

[Chaosmancer]

theoretically believing they existed and seeing one walk down your street are differing matters. But you are wedded to this rather strange insistence that people back then were MORE accepting than people now, somehow.

Who said anything about more.

Cat person walking down the streets of New York... well not today because social distancing, but in 2019... also probably a bad time because of that crappy Cats movie...

"In the modern day" is more likely to be mobbed with requests for selfies, or annoyed about what movie they are performing in, or if they are a fursona than they would be to cause panic and riots.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

theoretically believing they existed and seeing one walk down your street are differing matters. But you are wedded to this rather strange insistence that people back then were MORE accepting than people now, somehow.

I have two hard limits - without direct divine intervention societies aren't static, and without direct divine intervention pure dystopias fall apart. I've yet to decide whether Menzobaranzan is essentialy Lolth playing The Sims with a lot of direct intervention or whether it's a potemkin city for Lolth's benefit. Either way it's not natural. (I also in the setting I'm writing have no winged humanoids who can use their wings to fly due to the square cube law). But a simple rule for me of setting building is if it is possible within the bounds of the setting some idiot will have tried it - and as DM I can't anticipate everything even my players will try, never mind all the NPCs.

Love the thoughts on Menzobaranzan.

A quick note on flying races, though. The square cube law doesn’t prevent a 5 foot tall creature from flying. Larger creatures have flown IRL. The argentavis magnificens weighed 150-180 lbs, had a wingspan of about 16-21 ft, and it’s height while standing was about 5-6ft. That’s all within humanoid ranges, with a wingspan that can be folded in just fine to fit in medium sized spaces. (And there were notably larger and heavier flying creatures before argentavis. See the bottom of my post)

Obviously do what works for you, just thought I’d share that.

For more info, here is a wikipedia link with good referencing, and a quote for those who aren’t interested enough to dive into research. “
The ability to fly is not a simple question of weight ratios, except in extreme cases; size and structure of the wing must also be taken into account. As a rule of thumb, a wing loading of 25 kg/m2 is considered the limit for avian flight.[12] The heaviest extant flying birds are known to weigh up to 21 kg (46 lb) (there are several contenders, among which are the European great bustard and the African kori bustard). An individual mute swan, which may have lost the power of flight due to extreme weight, was found to have weighed 23 kg (51 lb).[11] Meanwhile, the sarus crane is the tallest flying bird alive, at up to 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) tall, standing about as high as Argentavis due to its long legs and neck.

The largest flying creatures overall that are known to exist are not birds, but instead distantly-related archosaurs, namely the azhdarchid pterosaurs of the Cretaceous. The wingspans of larger azhdarchids, such as Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx, have been estimated to exceed 10 m (33 ft), with less conservative estimates being 12 m (39 ft) or more. Mass estimates for these azhdarchids are on the order of 200–250 kg (440–550 lb) and their estimated height on the ground was roughly analogous to an elephant or small giraffe.[13]”

Quetzalcoatlus was immense. A Goliath sized flyer would need a much different body than a standard humanoid, but it’s hardly impossible. It’s happened before!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Love the thoughts on Menzobaranzan.

A quick note on flying races, though. The square cube law doesn’t prevent a 5 foot tall creature from flying. Larger creatures have flown IRL. The argentavis magnificens weighed 150-180 lbs, had a wingspan of about 16-21 ft, and it’s height while standing was about 5-6ft. That’s all within humanoid ranges, with a wingspan that can be folded in just fine to fit in medium sized spaces. (And there were notably larger and heavier flying creatures before argentavis. See the bottom of my post)

Obviously do what works for you, just thought I’d share that.

I don't mean to imply nothing human sized can fly - just that to get a plausible human-scale flyer you're stretching the definition of "humanoid" fairly far. The game and setting have dragons of course, so there must be some ways of telling the laws of thermodynamics to shut up in general. Just I'm not allowing humanoid flyer PCs.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't mean to imply nothing human sized can fly - just that to get a plausible human-scale flyer you're stretching the definition of "humanoid" fairly far. The game and setting have dragons of course, so there must be some ways of telling the laws of thermodynamics to shut up in general. Just I'm not allowing humanoid flyer PCs.

Probably worthy of a separate conversation, but, do you not see the aarakokra as different enough? Looking at argentavis, it seems like a really long necked aarakokra with 1 fewer set of limbs, to me.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Probably worthy of a separate conversation, but, do you not see the aarakokra as different enough? Looking at argentavis, it seems like a really long necked aarakokra with 1 fewer set of limbs, to me.

To put it bluntly, no. Argentavis had serious problems taking off as far as we can tell, and adding a couple of limbs to that (and probably some non-hollow bones) really wouldn't help. And then you need hollow bones which are their own can of worms, and a 20ft wingspan.

Of course you could say "a wizard" (or dragon) did it and they use magically assisted flight.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

To put it bluntly, no. Argentavis had serious problems taking off as far as we can tell, and adding a couple of limbs to that (and probably some non-hollow bones) really wouldn't help. And then you need hollow bones which are their own can of worms, and a 20ft wingspan.

Of course you could say "a wizard" (or dragon) did it and they use magically assisted flight.

Um...nope. Firstly, argentavis had a wingspan ranging from 16ft to 20ft. Secondly, so what? Flying creatures dont' generally walk around with their wings out, they're tucked up against the body.

Third, adding a set of limbs is literally less of a big deal than things like dragonborn breath weapons. It's a fantasy game, and you're balking at vanishingly small problems.

Lastly, hollow bones aren't a problem. I don't know where you get the idea that they are, but they aren't. They're incredibly strong. People think bird bones are weak because very small birds bones can be easily broken by a creature (us) that is many many times larger than them. This is also true of rodent bones, which aren't hollow. Further, not all flying creatures have hollow bones, and again, creatures that weigh twice what is normal for a human have had prolonged, high speed, soaring flight. Argentavis may have had trouble leaping into the air to fly, but that is also true of much smaller birds. It isn't a result of it's size.

Look, do what you want in your game, like I said, but if you're gonna be "blunt" like that, it's an argument about what makes sense rather than a discussion about why you made that decision. If you don't want flying humanoids just say that. Moving the goalposts from the square cube law to body shape (something that can be solved for with trivial ease if for some reason this one minor things bothers you where all the other fantasy elements that aren't directly magical but still don't make sense don't) extra limbs and hollow bones is just not necessary.

Hell, a lot of DMs make aarakokra or other flying races only have 4 limbs, so you can't use your arms to fight and also fly at the same time.

If you're a granular DM, you could just as easily give them gliding flight, and require jumping from some degree of height in order to gain flight without a major updraft (argentavis could take off with even really slight inclines, so describing them as having a really hard time flying or whatever is silly).

Or you can just decide that a type of critter doesn't exist. Like...you don't need to bend science, a thing that only tangentially relates to dnd anyway, to justify it.